> Initially? People looking for gold, silver, fur.
For the most part it was companies looking for gold, furs etc, with the support of their governments. Companies founded the colonies and trading posts for the benefit of the stockholders and the governments. The consideration of colonists was a distant third. When the supply of easy marks dried up they turned to indentured labour and then slavery.
Can't pick and choose. Would you be ok with people escaping persecution or spreading their religion coming in the country if they don't bring their parents?
What point do you think you’re responding to exactly?
GP mentioned “abandoning your parents” when you immigrate as if that’s absurd. In reality it’s the most normal thing imaginable.
I know hundreds of people who live outside their home country and I can’t thing of a single one of them who took their parents with them. When does that ever happen?
That's what I'm responding to. That the first immigrants to America came under very different circumstances. Circumstances that wouldn't get them into America today.
Abandoning your parents isn't absurd when you don't have other good options. It's also not the most normal thing imaginable. Would you abandon your parents and go to another country if they can't join you at all?
We want the "best and brightest" but we also want them to have to abandon their parents to do it? Many of the best and brightest have other options.
My wife "abandoned" her entire family to come to America at 18, didn't speak a word of english, had a suitcase and barely enough money to survive a week.
She doesn't regret it and her family doesn't think they were abandoned.
This "abandoned" idea is great example of a poor idea that goes into policy that doesn't match reality.
